Merry Christmas 2009 style!

We went up to Grandma and Grandpa Tucker's for the big holiday. We got there Wednesday afternoon and just had a fun-filled weekend. The girls played with their cousins, Micah played air hockey, and Malia just ran amok. We decorated cookies for Grandma's neighbors, played games, stayed up till 1 in the morning, and of course watched old corny Christmas movies. Christmas eve night we read the Christmas story and Grandpa read a story talking about the symbols of Christmas. The kids all got to take part in it.

Malia hamming it up with gamma.Pa pa explaining what the bell represents and Malia being totally enveloped by it.

Then it was time for the annual opening of the jammies. I told them to pose and this is what I got. I love Malia trying to show her moves.

Randy and even got in on the action. Randy picked out these jammies for me, what a sweetheart. Now my toes will never get cold. All I needed was some bunny ears and and a poofy tail and I woulda been Ralphie opening his aunts present. We had a good laugh.

Christmas morning started about 6:30 AM for us. The kids were up at the crack of dawn ready for their goodies from Santa. Malia would open a gift and then not want to open anything else till she felt she was ready. She played with this computer for a really long time till she got her doll furniture, then she wouldn't leave us alone till we put it all together.

Micah got some transformers and a Nerf gun along with this Spiderman puzzle. He loves puzzles.

McKenzie got some barbie things, a build a bear that we got to put together and some CD's. See the excitement in her eyes.

Morgan also got barbie things , CD's and a build a bear. I think the thing she was the most excited for was her Santa hat. She specifically asked Santa for it this year, and he pulled through for her. What a nice guy. Our family got Band Hero and Super Mario Brother's for the Wii. We were really excited to get them. The kids love playing them, especially McKenzie. We found out the there are 3 Taylor Swift songs on there. she couldn't have been happier.

I love Christmas time. I love the decorations, the smells, the feeling you get when you give to others, being with family, traditions, everything Christmas. I am sad that it is over now and that the decorations are put away. Maybe till next Christmas, we can try and have the spirit of Christmas with us.

Look what I can do Ma!

Morgan has had 2 wiggly teeth for about a month now and I kept telling her that she needs to pull them out so that she can ask Santa for her two front teeth. She has been wiggling them all month and about 2 weeks ago she finally let me pull one of them but the other was still holding on tight. That was until the other night when she brushed her teeth and the loose one started to bleed. So I told her that was it and we were pulling it now. After a little bit of convincing she finally let me yank it. She is soo stinkin cute without them. Just an FYI, her gums are not bleeding, she was eating a very red candy cane right before I took the pic. Kinda adds to the affect though right? On another note, Malia (my little sly fox) got into her aunt Julie's makeup when I wasn't looking for seriously no more than a minute. She was covered and I was mad, but I had to get a quick shot, just cuz this is how she is all of the time. Too cute not to share. She looks like my little hobo, eh, not only because of the black mascara all over her, but her hair is very unruly and I don't have the time or patience to do it every day.

Anyway, I still cannot believe that it is Christmas Eve, where has the time gone, seriously. We love this time of year and am so grateful we get to spend it with family.

Twas the Month of Christmas

Just cuz I know how crazy things get Christmas day, I'm going to get the pre-holiday happenings on here so I'm not putting so much on here at once for Christmas. To start we had our ward Christmas breakfast with the primary nativity. McKenzie and Morgan were angels. . . . Micah was a sheep.

The 3 after it was over. They did a really good job and for the most part sat still.

Right after they were done, Santa came and visited them. The poor guy's beard kept falling off.

We've been busy doing lots of Christmassy things (a word right). The kids had school until yesterday, which meant all of their parties were yesterday, which I was involved in 2 of them. We also made goodies for our neighbors and went around caroling to them, well most of them. Then this morning right after breakfast we frosted cookies. I haven't had time all month to do the cookies, but I was bound and determined to get it done before we left for grandma's house. So they ate Lucky Charms for breakfast and then immediately helped me frost and decorate cookies. Good combination right?

They had fun though and now I can enjoy just being up here, chillin, enjoying the company. I am officially ready for Christmas. Oh and just as a side note, I've been back to my Rhumatologist and he started me on Prednisone (which almost completely worked) and he wants to start me on another drug 10 times scarier which I'm not that keen on. There is still no diagnosis but he knows something is wrong. I go in again next we to discuss other options.

End of Thanksgiving goodness and friends

I know we are only 2 weeks away from Christmas, but I really wanted to post a little about our Thanksgiving weekend. The last day of school before the holiday, Morgan's class put together a couple of Pilgrim and Thanksgiving skits. All the kids got to participate and have their own lines. Morgan was a pilgrim girl and talked about what it was like on the Mayflower and after arriving in the New World. Isn't she so cute? Here she is saying her lines.

I was in charge of making/bringing rolls for our Thanksgiving dinner at Randy's parent's. Since I'm in pain, I begged Bacon to come over and help me make the rolls (meaning doing all of the muscle work). Isnt' she awesome, please don't leave me Bacon . . .

The yummy product. My mom has been making these rolls ever since I was little. We love them and look forward to the holidays just so we can have them. Not that we can't have them other times of the year, we just don't, weird I know.

We went to the Tucker's for an awesome meal with about 25 people. It was a blast. That night we left the kids with grandma and grandpa and Randy and I went home. Our 11th Anniversary was on Black Friday, and we really wanted to for once go shopping together, (something we haven't done since we were first married with no kids). We got about 4 hours of sleep and got up like the rest of the crazy black friday shoppers and got some great deals. We came home and slept for the rest of the morning and headed back up to kids to make sure they weren't killing grandma and grandpa.

Saturday on our way back home we all decided to make a quick trip to temple square and look at the lights (since Randy's bro and sis in law had never seen them). It was really cold so we only stayed for about half hour - forty-five minutes, but it was long enough to see all of the really cool lights. This tree is just covered in red lights, it is soo beautiful.

The Salt Lake temple, beautiful as always.

Last weekend was Randy's faculty party. It was a pretty crazy weekend. We had the party, a good friend's baptism, Randy's family pictures (which BTW the photo shoot can be seen here they turned out really cute). The last time we had a Tucker family picture was when we were first married with no kids. These are the crafts the kids made this year at the party.

After that fun-filled day we also were invited by some friends to an ugly sweater Christmas party. I'll try and post pics on that later. There were some doozies. I won itchiest sweater and Randy won saggiest arms sweater. It was great.

Now to today. My old high school friend, Sarah, came and visited me. She needed to get away and so she just bought a plane ticket and came down. She had a few other friends to visit, but I got to see her first. She stayed the night and we just talked and talked and played games just like the good ol days. We had a lot of catching up to do. The last time I was able to see her was when McKenzie was about a year or so. Can I just tell you how grateful I am for Facebook. I have been able to reconnect with so many of my old friends that way. Thanx Sarah for a great time. My kids miss you already.

Now onto really trying to focus on Chrismas, good luck right. I have a doctors appt. next week to go over results of some tests I've had, hopefully some news soon. I'll try and post when we figure something out.

Happy Thanksgiving

As you may remember at the beginning of the month I told you about our Thankful Turkey . Notice the size of the Turkey from then . . . till now. We went through all of the feathers of what everyone said, and here they are in no particular order. . .

1. My brain
2. Potties
3. Food
4. Sharing
5. My house
6. Aunts & Uncles
7. My Meanah (blankie)
8. School (including colleges)
9. Friends
10. A healthy body
11. People who do their jobs
12. Nursery
13. Camera
14. My Parents
15. My bed
16. Rainbows
17. My Kids
18. Laws
19. Ceiling fans
20. Being and making Creative things
21. Knowledge
22. Grandmas & Grandpas
23. Technology/Computers
24. Daddy
25. Church/Scriptures
26. Cousins
27. Bananas
28. Free Things
29. A Job
30. Special Days
31. Thanksgiving
32. Clocks
33. Medicine/Doctors
34. Juice
35. Being a Grad Student
36. Turkeys
37. Kleenex
38. My country
39. Jewelry
40. Toys
41. Missionaries
42. Flowers
43. Cups
44. Yummy Food/mom’s cooking
45. Animals
46. Education/Teachers
47. My family tree
48. Water
49. The Prophet
50. Service
51. Cars
52. Armed Forces
53. Journals
54. Jokes
55. Our Government
56. Temples
57. Christmas Bonuses
58. Neti Pot
59. Four Seasons
60. Meatballs
61. Shovels
62. The Priesthood
63. Weather
64. My 5 senses
65. Winter hats
66. Freedom
67. My Brothers and sisters
68. Exercising
69. Lagoon
70. My wife
71. Glasses
72. Dedication
73. My teachers
74. Soap
75. Rain
76. Hair
78. Lysol
79. Auto Mechanics
80. Pilgrims
81. Relief Society
82. Band Aids

Some were really cute, and some were doubled up (which is fine with me). Malia only had a few up there because every time we would ask her what she was thankful for, the same 3 things came out of her mouth "Papa, Dee da, Dally" (meaning grandpa, Kristi, Dallin). So we gave up on her and just let it be. We are truly blessed to have all that we do, and to have each other. NOw we are off for Turkey and all the fixins so . . . Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a goodnight.

Gearing up for Thanksgiving

I know that it isn't quite time for Christmas things, but I love decorations and the feeling of Christmas that I decided I would actually change my template to be festive for at least one holiday. Plus snowmen work all winter long and it has already started snowing here, so I'm good to go for a while.

Anyway, we are really excited for Thanksgiving this year. Randy's brother is flying in this week from Texas and so we get to spend time with him and his family which is great. Our Anniversary is the day after Thanksgiving (which is like the year we got married, we actually got married Black Friday, what were we thinking?). Randy's parents told us we could leave the kids with them Thanksgiving night and come home "kidless" to celebrate. We actually get to hit Black Friday sales together, instead of one of us (meaning Randy) having to stay home with the kids. We are pretty excited. The kids have various things going on this week like pilgrim plays, birthday parties and such and I get to go to a Rheumatologist this week and hopefully find out what is wrong with me.

I know I haven't really posted anything about my problems just cuz I thought I was being a baby about this, but I really don't think I am anymore, and this pain I am in is ridiculous and am getting tired of it. So here it goes. Back in July when we g0t home from our awesome trip to Wisconsin, I started having hip pain. I figured it was just from sitting in the car and having to turn around a lot helping kids. Well, then in August my neck and upper back started to hurt. On my birthday Meg's friend's who is a massage therapist for a chiropractor gave me a massage and told me how bad I was. So I gave in and started going to a chiropractor close to the end of Sept. to hopefully fix me. Every time I would go in, he would have to readjust everything and I was still having a lot of pain in my hip. Towards the middle-end of Oct. other joints started to hurt and I really couldn't figure it out. It has progressively moved to seriously almost every joint in my body (including my jaw, fingers, toes) weird joints that you think shouldn't hurt. So at the beginning of Nov. I went to my doctor who took my history and some blood tests to try and figure out where this pain was coming from. He tested me for various arthritis', Lyme disease (which totally fit since I was in the backwoods of Wisconsin), and even Lupus, which scared me a little. All of them came back negative except the one that says I have inflammation (duh I could have told you that) and so now I'm going to see a Rheumatologist to hopefully figure out what is going on. All I know is that I can't handle the pain anymore. Aleve and Ibuprofen don't even touch it. If I lay around trying to take it easy it gets worse, if I over do it, the same. I have given up, I am soo tired of being uncomfortable all of the time. All I want is to move without pain and get a good night's rest. Is that soo much to ask for? Hopefully Santa will come early to my house this year and give me the greatest present of my life, mobility.

Rad Kids and New Moon Party

McKenzie just finished her second round of Rad Kids. The last time she did this was in 1st grade and she loved it. (Which means Morgan will be doing it later on this year). I love how it brings awareness to kids about the dangers that are out there and what they can do in scary situations. The cop that was there said that when it comes down to a fight or flight situation, only 3% of people actually do what they've been TOLD to do, the rest kinda freeze or do the wrong things. These kids practice and go through scenarios for about 3 weeks practicing skills and then on the final day, the cop dresses up in protective gear (so he doesn't get hurt) and the kids go at it on him, kicking and hitting and yelling, anything they can do to get away from him. It's pretty amazing what they can actually do. On another note, New Moon came out 2 days ago and my friend Kelly's mom rented out a theater and sold all of the tickets to people that she, or her daughter's knew. Kelly was so excited for this that she and another friend, Beth, put together a pre New Moon celebration dinner and game night. It was a blast. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures cuz apparently I was having too much fun. I brought my heckling sister, Bacon, with me. Apparently she's really not that into Edward and Bella and just likes to make fun of them through the whole movie.

Burger King has Twilight crowns which of course we wore.

And a few of us made T-shirts just to make sure everyone knew we were ready.

Here's Michelle and her sister all stoked for the movie to start.

Miss Vera Jean who was the reason I was able to finish the books so quickly. Thanx girl, you are awesome.

Steph, Bridget and Sarah from my ward.

The Albach sister's. They remind me of me and my sisters when we were younger, only much nicer to each other. I love these girls, they are soo cute. Oh ya, and Buffy in the background trying to get in the fun.

Me, Beth, Buffy and Jess. I love Beth's expression, the guy who took the pic told us to think of Edward, and Beth took it to heart. Too funny.

It was a ton a fun. The best thing was we didn't have to watch the annoying previews at the beginning and we could start whenever we were ready. Kelly's mom had a bunch of stuff to raffle off before we started. It was awesome. Thanx ladies for a great evening. Oh and the boys got together for a New Moon bashing night. It sounds like they had dessert and played games till the kids got tired. Can't wait for Eclipse to come out. Bring it on.

Our Thankful Turkey

I was given the assignment of giving a lesson in Relief Society yesterday on Gratitude. At first I was having a hard time researching the topic for whatever reason, until I found this devotional given by Elder Joseph B Wirthlin back in 2000 about living Thanksgiving daily. It was an amazing talk and it really opened my eyes on how my attitude really needs to change. I need to be grateful for everything I have and everything I can do. The happiest people out there are the one's not with the most money or the nicest things, but are the most grateful. I enjoy being happy, as I'm sure most people do, so this month we are making our Thankful Turkey again and we are actually starting at the beginning of the month, so this year our poor little turkey is going to have feathers to the living room (ok not that big but close). I hope that my children will understand the meaning of this, and that they can learn to be happy and grateful for all they have. I also use a poem entitled

I'll be Happy when

by Marie Lundeen

A small child sat in the fullness of spring, surrounded by the beauty of each living thing.
All the wonders of nature never caught her eye, and she said to herself with a discontented sigh.
“When I get to be five, I’ll be happy then.” So continued her thoughts of I’ll be happy when.
The little child grew to a girl in her teens; still feeling that life is never quite what it seems.
I wish I were sixteen and had my own car; I’d be happier then, much happier by far.
That teenager grew to a young woman then wife, standing with her young man on the threshold of life.
Still she was not happy, and she thought perhaps, if I had a child to cuddle on my lap.
Children did come and the young mother often said, “I’ll be happy when these little ones have all gone to bed.
I’d be happy if I just had more time to myself, if I didn’t have to keep my nic-nac’s so high on the shelf,
if I didn’t have so many children to care for, I could buy a lovely new sofa, and rug for the floor.”
Well time passed by and the young woman’s hair turned to grey, and she found herself all alone one day.
With all the time in the world and her home most exquisite, she wished her children would come home for a visit.
I’d be happy if only they would visit me more, it’s so seldom I see a grandchild at my door.
She had lived with her motto “I’ll be happy when” never pausing, content, with the blessings of then.
And so she drifted through each season of life, neglecting the beauty while noting the strife.
Till at length she arrived at winter’s last days, feeling life was so unfair in so many ways.
Finally humbled and trembling on bended knee, she prayed to the Lord to answer her plea.
Dear Father, if thou art above, why ‘hast thou withheld thy love?
Am I not one of thine own? Yet, I am old, unhappy, and all alone.
All I ever wanted was happiness, instead, I find disappointment, and distress.
The answer came as a seedling of thought, to her mind. Perhaps, happiness isn’t something you find.
It’s not where you live, but how, and the time to be happy is not someday, but now!
It’s not something you buy, or win, true happiness comes from peace within!
“That peace my child is the key that comes only from serving me.”
Then she begged for forgiveness, as the tired heart swelled, the blessings had gone unnoticed, but never withheld.
So in the winter of life, instead of the spring, an old woman sat surrounded, by the beauty of each thing.
And not a wonder of nature escaped her eye, as she said to herself with a contented sigh,
“So this old body will soon be laid to rest, I, of all people, am truly most blessed.”
Now old and feeble with shoulders bent, she was finally happy and truly content!

May this Thanksgiving season be one of great happiness. Be happy just to wake up in the morning, to give my kids hugs see the beauty of the earth. I am grateful for this country that I live in, where I am free to believe the things I want. I love my family, and am truly blessed to have them.

Halloween `09

OK, so this really isn't a Halloween shot, but it was funny nonetheless. I came home from water aerobics one night to see this in my hallway. Randy said she never heard her, I had a good laugh. -K- so onto the Halloween festivities. I kinda enjoyed having Halloween on a Saturday this year. It meant that that day was not totally rushed by everything else with school and stuff. However, it meant like 3 days of getting candy instead of like 1 or 2. It was a gorgeous day, like upper 50's-low 60's and we just had a good day all around. McKenzie was a flower fairy. . .

Morgan was a kitty. . .

Malia was a little German girl/Heidi/Gretel (take your pick), but from the looks of this picture apparently I should have made her a pirate. Oh well, can't win them all. This dress is really from Austria. My mom went when she was in college and bought a few keepsakes. None of my kids have worn it yet, and I really wanted to make sure we used it at least once. It was always hiding in some random box instead of with the Halloween things. But I got `er done this year.

Micah was a cowboy, courtesy of my friend/neighbor Michelle who seems to just have everything I need. She's awesome. She had the chaps, vest, boots and bandanna, isn't he handsome. I was in charge of Micah's party this year at school and she had a great cake walk game (even had the music for it) and let me borrow it. It was one less thing for me to have to worry about and I am so grateful to her.

Morgan's friends decided to get into the kitty act and wanted to be one also. There were 3 girls in her class that were black cats. This was just 2 of them.

We saw this in a magazine this year. You take cardboard and cut out shape and put tissue paper in the cutouts. When your lights are on in the house it makes it light up like a candle. It was such a cute idea we tried it out this year. I did however hate not having sunlight in my living room during the day, I'm a sun person and love it coming through my windows. we might just do the upstairs windows next year, I don't mind if my bedroom has no light for a few weeks.

And of course we had a little bit of Pumpkin Bob this year. The kids aren't huge fans of it, just cuz I make them eat a little pumpkin too, but it's really not that bad. Pretty much meat and rice. I just love making it for Halloween, it's fun and different.

This is before I scraped the pumpkin into the mix.

And last but not least, I needed to post a pic of Bacon's hair. My friend Buffy has been cutting her hair since she got home from her mission. This time she wanted to put some color in it just for some more fun. I think it turned out great. She says now when she faux hawks it one side is brown and the other is blonde. That's Megan for ya.

Overall Halloween this year was fun. No major injuries or catastrophes, and the kids made out pretty well on their candy too. I love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holiday's. My grandma was a big Halloween nut, I think a little bit of her rubbed off on me, but that's ok, she was a great woman. Her favorite saying was always "Nothing for kids, everything for adults." She was a hoot.